


Stars

by Bubbly88Tay



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek AOS
Genre: Blood, Broken Bones, Car Accident, Jim!whump, Love/Hate Relationship, M/M, Present for my best frand, Right the story., also, secret santa fic exchange, super supportive momma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:18:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubbly88Tay/pseuds/Bubbly88Tay
Summary: Staring up at the stars, he couldn't believe that this was how it was going to end.





	Stars

 

Jim couldn't believe that this was how he was going to end his days.    
  
It was almost perfect, staring up into the stars that he called home. As a child he would stare, knowing that one day, he would return and be the person his mother had always wanted him to be. He hated the stars for taking his father away from him, but he loved the infinite adventures that they held, because if anything got him excited - besides booze and the ladies - it was an adventure.   
  
The older he got, the amount of time he spent staring at the stars dwindled. He'd lost sight of them completely for a while, and in that time, he had learned much. He couldn't bring himself to admit that he had regretted much of his time spent in trouble with the law, or under the influence of alcohol. He did, however, regret the stress it put on his mother, Winona.    
  
She never said anything, but whenever he would come home in the morning, not in cuffs he could see the relief in her eyes. But there had been other mornings. Mornings where she would rush to the hospital to be with her son, after he had picked a fight with the wrong person. Or there was that one time when he was 16. He had stolen, and then wrecked his friends, fathers car. He'd almost died that night but she had sat there and supported him through his recovery, and he's sure that she thought he would see the light of things, and the stars would shine for him again.    
  
But he didn't and they didn't.    
  
She never stopped coming to retrieve him from the police stations, no matter how much it pained her to see her son constantly in trouble with the law. Jim knew that she had blamed herself. For all his problems, there was always a solution that she herself should've been able to provide. For a while, Jim was naive enough to believe that.    
  
It wasn't until Pike stepped in and told him exactly what his mom had been saying for years did he finally understand what she had meant.    
  
That his life was worth so much more than he believed. 

 

The stars suddenly were a lot closer and a lot clearer after that.   
  
He hadn't seen her happier since the day he graduated high school, when he had told her that he was going to join Starfleet. She had been so proud of her boy, but she would never tell him that she cried herself to sleep at night as she worried for her son.    
  
She spent her nights worrying and her days wondering. She had always seen his father in him, in the way he carried himself and the way he presented himself, and his actions had only seemed to re-establish that thought process. Decisions made that only continued to establish the parallels between the two loves of her life.    
  
When he had come home right after the incident that left Pike an Admiral and himself a Captain, he had certainly established a change within himself. He was captaining the Enterprise, and once again she was so proud, but for the first time, she saw her son, James Tiberius Pike, and not his father.   
  
She wasn't sure how he had made it home from that adventure in one piece, but he had assured her that he had people looking out for him. She recognized the glint in his eyes as he'd said it. She'd believed him but still she was unable to shake the feeling of anxiety.    
  
Rightfully so, when she had heard of his death during the Khan incident, she had nearly died herself. Her heart had hammered in her chest for days, as she came to the conclusion that she was completely alone in the universe.    
  
When he had coming knocking on her door a month later, looking a little worse for wear, and considerably older, she had decided that whatever was going to happen, would happen.    
  
It wasn't until Jim brought Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy home that Winona Kirk was finally able to sleep peacefully, knowing somebody was looking after her son. She had pulled Jim off the side later on that night, "You could of told me you were gay."   
  
Jim smiled a warm smile as he pulled him mom into a hug, "I didn't know until I met him."    
  
Jim always remained stoic throughout his adventures in the stars, and never allowed his mother to see how scared he was sometimes. There were nights he woke up in a cold sweat    
throat sore. Sheets soaked through and twisted around his body, only further serving to choke him. Those were the mornings that he would quietly sob to himself, wondering why he ever thought the stars were his home.    
  
But then there were mornings that he would wake up to his head resting against the warm, soft, chest of the man he loved. Bones would run his hands through his hair, whispering softly, words that Jim would be unable to decipher, but pulled him back into a relaxed state. No matter how much he kicked and thrashed, anymore, Leonard would hold him tightly to him and remind him that he was right there, and that he wasn't going anywhere.    
  
Those mornings further proved why the stars were his life. How even though the stars took as much from his as they could, they had also given him more than he could have ever imagined.    
  
Bones and his mother got along too well for Jim's taste sometimes, often times receiving the brunt of worry from the two most important people in his life. There were moments where he'd receive a transmission from his mother, yelling at him for something Bones had beat her too, but had obviously informed her about.   
  
He spent a lot time worrying, Bones did. At first, he claimed it was just him trying to remind Jim that not every idea was a good one, anymore though, he made sure that Jim knew it was because he couldn't lose him, *not again*.   
  
The nights that Bones spent mending his wounds in sickbay had always been particularly rough. Bones holding his hands, his body shaking as if he'd been zapped with a ridiculous amount of electricity. And Jim always holding on to that hand, holding on to it for dear life.    
  
The days that they spent exploring though, meeting new people, spending days on exotic beaches and nights dancing on the edges of canyons, with only the stars to judge. Those were the best kind of days the couple could ask for.   
  
Through it all, he always thought he would be there for another adventure.   
  
Staring up at the stars now, his entire being aching as his soul slowly started to dwindle away, he realized he might have been wrong.    
  
He’d left Bones at his mom’s house, promising he’d be back later, wanting to go meet up with some old friends of his while they were on shore leave on Earth. His mother appreciated the company, and Bones always appreciated lounging around and playing cards with Jim’s mother. 

 

He had only driven about 30 minutes out, and the sun had only begun to set, when Jim had lost control of the car. Jim wasn’t sure in the moment if had been a tire that had blown out or if he had just lost control of the car, but one moment, he was going 70 miles per hour down a back road surrounded by fields and fields of corn, and the next moment, he was staring up into a dark sky full of stars.

 

Jim didn't try to move at first. He had enough sense in him to understand that he had just gone through the windshield, and that he should have been stretched out into ribbons. He was glad he wasn't in ribbons, but he knew there was a very real possibility that he wasn't ok. So he just laid on the soft bed of dirt that sat below the side of the road. 

 

Instead he tried to figure out he had gotten to this moment. He supposed that he should have seen it coming. He should have known that if he was happy, and life was going good, that reality would eventually come calling. He had figured maybe reality would have been polite enough to knock at the door. But Jim was very aware that reality was that best friend that broke into your house, slept with your girl, and then ate all your food. All while kicking your ass. 

 

And here reality was reminding him that what went up, must also come down. As was often the case. (Fuck you physics.)

 

Jim was suddenly very, very aware that he couldn't feel anything.

 

Being in love with a doctor left him with a knowledge of a good deal of minor and major tidbits of medical information. Like when you sneezed into your hand, and then handed your data tablet to another individual, you ran the risk of getting everybody on the ship sick. Or, if you were impaled, you should never remove the object without a team of medical professions on hand (Oh man, had Jim have died from that stupid mistake of his, he was fairly certain that Bones would have revived him just to kill his stupid ass again. Hell, he did have to revive him once…) Best yet, if in a traumatic situation, and you can't feel anything, there could be a number reasons. But none were good. 

 

Jim wasn't sure how long he’d been there at that point. It could have been minutes, but he was fairly certain that every time he would close his eyes, he would wake up to the stars in a different position, as if the whole world had rotated in the few seconds that he had closed his eyes. 

 

Or he was falling asleep with every blink of his eye. 

 

Jim could barely feel the cold, night air, instead he decided that he was really tired of sitting here and doing nothing. 

 

Slowly, Jim brought a heavy hand to rest on his face. He allowed himself to feel comfort in the fact that he could move his hand at all, but it was cold. His fingers felt hard and foreign on his freezing face, and his face felt too soft and fragile to his freezing fingers. But he didn't let that stop him. He attempted to move the other arm as well, but the moment he shifted his shoulder, he felt a bone, somewhere in his presumably broken body, shift. Maybe more than one. Immediately his vision blackened, and he hardly felt his hand fall to his face. 

 

He's certain he must have screamed a little bit, because when he came back to the surface and began glaring at the stars again, he could feel the rawness in the back of his throat. He tasted blood in his mouth. 

 

He off handedly blamed it on him biting his lip, primarily because he didn't want to think if what could be wrong with his internal organs. He imagined nothing good. 

 

For the first time since this mess occurred, Jim looked up at the stars and felt lonely. All he wanted was somebody here with him. Or, perhaps he would prefer somebody with him in a hospital room. Ok, he was lonely and none too pleased with his current setting.

 

Neither of which he could help. Hardly anybody was up this late, (he could only assume that it was later than 11, because he didn't want to think that he hasn't been here that long.) And this road Jim used to drive as fast as he could down it because he knew that hardly anyone ever drive down it. 

 

And old habits die hard. 

 

So instead, it was up to him to try and determine whether he was going to make it for another couple of hours. He pulled his heavy, non broken, arm away from his body, and slowly began to try and diagnose himself again. 

 

His head was beating like a drum, a constant, continuous beat. His hand felt slick on his forehead, and after further ministrations, deduced that'd he had probably ripped the skin open when be went through the windshield. There were scratches all over his face. He brought his hand to prod at the top of his head and immediately pulled it away. His hair was wet, and he hadn't showered recently. He looked up at his hand and winced at the red that was blatant in the night. 

 

Jim set his arm on the ground, feeling his arm growing tired and weak. Instead, he dragged it down to the side of his body and began to poke at his side. His body was covered by a large, thick, winter jacket that prevented much in the way of diagnosing, but based off the heaviness in his chest, and the short breaths he was taking, he determined that it wasn't good. 

 

Lifting his arm up again, Jim began to prod at his right shoulder and neck delicately. He immediately found the broken bone in his collarbone, but could also feel his shoulder was dislocated. The pain was humming along to the drums in his head. 

 

Jim wanted to chuckle as he realized that as his awareness slipped, pain was slowly becoming easier to pinpoint. Nonetheless, Jim continued his ministrations down his arm and felt his arm bent unnaturally at his side. 

 

He could only determine that he had landed on it during his untimely exit from the vehicle. He ran his hand over his chest but with all his layers, it was impossible to determine any injuries. He could feel ribs shift in his chest and he wasn't really interested in trying to sit up to view his lower half, but Jim could feel the pain that radiated from his right leg. Deciding it was a good idea not to mess much with the right, and instead, tried to bend his left. 

 

He could feel it moving, and was pleased as he felt nothing immediately wrong with his left leg. 

 

Jim opened eyes that he hasn't even realized he had closed, and looked up at the stars. 

 

Stars, that had once meant adventure. And hope. Now mocking him as he laid in the ditch outside some cornfield with no hope for rescue anytime soon. 

 

He couldn't even communicate with anyone. His communicator was probably still in the car or lying somewhere out here with him. 

 

Jim felt a pang in his chest, and immediately after, felt a tickle in the back of his throat. He tried clearing his throat, but instantly regretted it. Jim coughed sharply, and tasted more blood in his mouth as he continued to hack. His head pounded and his body ached and clouds were slowly rolling in and the stars were dimming and Jim could feel his eyes sliding shut. 

 

He wanted Bones here with him, or his mom, or hell, he would settle for Spock or Scotty. He just felt so alone and he didn't want to die here, and he didn't want to die alone and - 

 

Jim saw the light. Dull at first as he slowly felt himself fading, and he wasn't sure he would be waking up again. The closer the light got, the more the darkness settled around him.. 

 

And after a moment, he was completely enveloped in the darkness. 

 

\-----

 

Bones was asleep when he had heard the knock on the bedroom door. Now, he was used to middle of the night wake up calls, which probably accounted for his light sleep, but he wasn't expecting any disturbances. 

 

Winona had gone to bed hours before, and Bones had spent a long while reading through some of the medical journals that he hadn't been able to keep up with. He was nestled deeply under covers on Jim's bed, the light dimmed low, and he must have just slipped asleep. 

 

The knocking was frantic though, and pulled him from his sleep quickly. 

 

He knew something was wrong when he didn't feel the warmth of his partner at his side. He jumped from the bed, realizing he was still in the clothes he had worn during the day. Pulling the door opened, he was unsurprised to find the smaller frame of Jim's mother. “I just got a communication from Jim’s friends. They just wanted to ask if he had ever left.”

 

“He never showed up? He left hours ago?” Bones felt the dread that had settled in his stomach lurch upwards as his brain immediately went into hyper drive. “Do you think he went somewhere else?”

 

“5 years ago, I would have said yes. Right now though, I think he's in trouble. Call me paranoid, but it's mother's intuition.”  Bones nodded in agreement as he tried to calm his nerves. “I'm going to look for him on some of those back roads he takes. Come with me?” 

 

She stated it like a question, but she clearly left no room for an answer other than yes, like Bones wouldn't have said yes. “When we find him, I'm going to kill him.”

 

“As his mother, I’ll join you.” Bones attempted a comforting smile as the two of them ventured off into the night. 

\-------

Later on, when he would finally get the chance to reflect, Bones would only be able to chalk up being able to find Jim due to luck. 

 

It was luck, that Jim’s friends were worried enough to contact them before it would have been too late. Had they gone off looking when they had woken the next morning, Bones was certain Jim would have been dead when they found him. 

 

It was luck that Winona Kirk had known her son better than Jim cared to admit. Knowing that back roads were Jim’s jam. That being able to keep the windows open and going about as fast as the car would allow him were definitely something he would be doing, and doing that on an interstate or any populated road for that matter was out of the question. 

 

It was luck that Winona had turned left, instead of right. 

 

It was luck that Bones was a doctor. 

 

It was luck that Jim was still alive when they got to him. 

 

They knew where he was as soon as they had gotten close enough to establish that the shadow in the ditch was Jim’s car. Bones felt the all too entirely familiar feeling of fear, as they rolled closer and closer to the car. It was slightly alleviated when they had stopped next to the car and Bones couldn’t see Jim’s shadow in the driver's seat. 

 

The pair ran the few feet to the car, Winona beating Bones out by a few centimeters. Bones knew as soon as he looked at the front windshield that Jim was somewhere near by. Bones ignored the blood that ran in rivulets down the shattered window and looked out at the field. Bringing his eyesight lower and into the ditch… Leonard would never forget the sight that greeted him. 

 

He couldn't bring himself to move, instead staring at the broken space man that lied before him. He was frozen as Winona called out to Jim as she rushed to his side. Bones could diagnose many injuries almost as once, the headlights that casted a light out and into the field a blessing and a curse. Leonard shivered at the amount of blood that coated Jim's face and had soaked through his jackets. Crooked limbs that laid at his sides. His eyes, shut. 

 

It wasn't until Winona's anguished cries, screaming Jims, and then Leonards name out into the night, that Bones made any sort of movement. 

 

Suddenly he was a doctor again, as he ripped his communicator out of his pocket and flipped it open, calling for help and having them track his location because ‘no, god damn it, I’m a doctor, not a cartographer.’ 

 

Bones wished that the Enterprise was right above Earth and not over by Jupiter for repairs. Instead, Bones only hoped that help would get here quick enough. 

 

Next thing he knew, he was by Jim's side checking his pulse and after verifying that he did indeed still have a beating heart and was breathing sort of, pulling open his jackets as carefully as possible to be able to get to the bloods source, and was met by a grisly sight. Bones could only assume that it was Jim's own ribs that had torn through the skin, clearly spotting the white bone that sat surrounded by red. Bones quickly took his own jacket off and laid it on top of Jim, realizing that the best he could do was try to rouse Jim, keep him on the right side of consciousness. 

Winona was afraid to touch him, Bones had seen it before when he had had patients this bad in his med bay. When it seems like someone's falling apart, nobody wants to be responsible for being the final straw that breaks the camel's back. Hell, Bones didn't want to break Jim either, but he wasn't going to lose him, not like this. 

 

“Hold his hand, it doesn't look broken to me, it'll help if he knows you're here for him.” He didn’t wait to see if she would listen to his instructions, instead he rolled up on his heels and carefully laid both of his hands on Jim's face, “Jim?”

 

It wasn’t surprising that Jim didn’t respond to the shaky way Bones tried to garner his attention. Bones couldn’t believe the way the word sounded either, it portrayed the way he was feeling outwardly better than his shaky hands or his racing heart. 

 

He contemplated different approaches, and not wanting to screw with anything that lay below Jim's neck, Bones tapped Jim's cheeks a couple times to rouse the man. “Jim, come on, wake up.”

 

Jims eyes fluttered open, as Jim stared up into the face of the man he loved. He didn't try to speak, he hadn’t since the accident. Jim was content staring up into the eyes of the doctor. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he thought he was hallucinating. Thinking his brain was letting him see what he wanted to see right before he passed away. But that thought was quickly filed away with the other things that he would rather not think about. 

 

Bones was talking to him, and Jim knew he wasn’t going to stop, because Jim knew that if Bones stopped talking, even though he couldn’t understand him, that would be it. Jim wasn’t sure how many more times he was going to be able to wake up. Jim took comfort in the fact that Bones knew that too. Jims eyesight glided from his lovers down to his mother's, as he comprehended the fact that there was another person there. 

 

It was in that moment, that Jim knew if he was going to go, having the two people that he loved most in the world by his side was the only way he would want to go. 

 

Jim attempted a smile towards his mother and then glanced back up Bones. Bones was speaking rapidly, he could tell by the way his lips were moving a hundred miles a second, and he was breathing hard. His breaths falling on Jim's face and warming it slightly. Jims breath caught in his chest, and suddenly he couldn't breathe anymore, but he wasn’t panicking. 

 

He relished in his final moments as he realized that Bones hadn't brushed his teeth, because he had that morning breath that Jim was so used to waking up to. It was sort of endearing to him, knowing that Bones was so worried about him, that basic hygiene went out the window. 

 

Jim attempted a final smile as his eyes glided upwards up towards the sky. Looking up at the stars, Jim thought it was perfect. 

 

It was perfect. 

\-----

Bones waited three days, three fucking days to see Jim's eyes again. 

 

His body, had been broken. Internal organs were busted, the leg and arm had been broken in multiple spots. His clavicle had been broken, his shoulder dislocated. Hypothermia had kicked in.  All of that could be healed, however, it was his brain that the doctors were worried about. 

 

Right after he had gone unconscious that last time,  _ right after he had stopped breathing _ , he’d seized. Apparently using your head to go through a windshield wasn’t good for the brain. Using your head as landing gear was also not good for the brain. All things Leonard had knew, but Jim seemed to miss that lesson in  _ basic survival training _ . 

 

It had been bad, and it was a miracle that Jim had even made it to the hospital. Granted, he made it to the hospital in a coma, he did, indeed, make it. 

 

It’d been awhile since Bones had cried, maybe he was due, but watching his love slip through his fingers had really fucked him up. He’d cried, and he sobbed, and around those sobs, he did his best to perform rescue breathing, because Winona had been crying just as hard, if not harder right beside him. He’d screamed at him a lot to, and when medical personnel had arrived, Bones spent a lot of time reminding Jim that ‘he loved the hell out of him, and he wasn’t getting back on that god forsaken ship without him, so he needed to stay with them. He needed to stay with  _ him.’ _

 

Winona nor himself had left Jim’s side though, because neither of them wanted to miss the moment where Jim opened his eyes and decided to rejoin the living. 

 

It had been a short moment when he finally had reawakened, doctors had made it very clear that Jim would be kind of out of it for the first couple of times. Bones had made it very clear that he  _ ‘fucking knew that you dipshits because I’m a fucking doctor.’ _ Winona had scolded him, Bones blamed it on the situation. 

 

But those pearly blues opened, and Bones was right there waiting, frown on his face, eyebrows touching as he made sure the glare was prominent. “You fucking do this to me again, I will rip the warp core right out of your stupid ass ship and throw into the middle of some god forsaken jungle planet and make you fucking find it in the middle of the night. Do you understand me you fucking lunatic?”

 

Jim had understood, nodding his head carefully as Winona leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I love you baby, but I’m going to agree with the doctor on this one.”

 

“I get it. I love you both, too?” Jim's eyes dashed over to Bones and Bones allowed his anger to drop as he took Jim's hand delicately, thanking the stars that Jim was still alive to threaten.

 

“That's not what I said, but yes, I do love you.” Bones leaned down, as Winona stepped back… 

 

*THE END*

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was my first venture into the Star Trek fandom and I wrote this fic for the fanfiction exchange we did over on Tumblr. 
> 
> So, yea, I really hope y'all enjoy even though this will probably be super OOC to you all. 
> 
> Enjoy, and let me know what you think!


End file.
